kitsch-ka-blogs

Cruising home from the beach far out on Long Island, we discovered… the Cornell University International Duck Research Cooperative???

Matt, for reasons known only to himself, decided to stake his claim as a Cornellian by parking on the grass.  Literally within thirty seconds, a huge SUV pulled up and ordered us OUT.  The only explanation?  Cornell must be breeding mutant killer ducks.

Or, according to the website: “The Duck Laboratory came into existence in 1949 as a result of a working relationship between duck producers on Long Island and Cornell University.  At that time, very little scientific research was being carried out on ducks. In contrast, a considerable amount of research was being conducted at a number of universities on chicken and turkey production. The relatively small size of the duck industry in the United States, compared to the chicken and turkey industries, placed the duck industry at a decided disadvantage in obtaining financial support for research.  To help overcome this obstacle, the duck growers made a commitment to pay a large portion of the cost of research themselves through the payment of dues and fees. An agreement between Cornell University, and what was soon to become the Long Island Duck Research Cooperative was reached to establish and operate a duck laboratory at Eastport, New York.”

Well, it’s another embarrassing day for Cornell.  Christopher Langone, a PhD student at our illustrious institution, recently filed a class-action law suit against rock band Rush for inconsiderately letting their Chicago concert get rained out—and he wants $$$ for those beers he bought, too, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Read the rest of this entry »

This post marks the first in a new series, which will include reviews of books, music, and anything else that moves our hardened Kitschy hearts to something akin to joy.

Ah, summertime.  For some of us, it means putting on our corporate clacky-heels and making intimidating faces all over Manhattan.  For others, it means obsessively attending Latin dance aerobics at California Family Fitness and lying around in our backyards stuffing our faces with lime popsicles that our concerned mothers bought for us.  As a member of the latter camp, I have also been afforded oodles of time to lounge about reading books about my very favourite things: vampires, parasols, and the gay. Read the rest of this entry »

The frantic studying taking place in the Arthur H. Dean Reading Room in Uris Library was interrupted just an hour ago by a slew of cameramen and Bob Saget, the actor who played Danny Tanner in the popular 90’s television show, Full House.

Bob Saget is currently filming a show on A&E called Bob Saget’s Strange Days, and has come to Cornell to feature the rather under-the-radar-fraternity, Seal and Serpent.

What brought Saget to Uris Library is unclear. He only spent about five or ten minutes in the Reading Room sitting at various desks and conversing with two unknown college-aged young men as cameramen filmed nearby. Only a handful of students (including myself) were studying in the room at the time, yet Saget’s presence certainly caused a stir. Many students awkwardly stood around watching the scene, and Saget was rushed with a small crowd as he exited the building.

Rumor has it that Saget will be on campus throughout the weekend.

Few things should feel as idyllically collegiate as a walk down Ho Plaza in the springtime. The skies are blue and the trees are in bloom. The only problem is that recently, the Plaza has been smelling like that time in summer camp when I brought a dead crab for show and tell and left it in my cubby for a month.

What is that malodorous aroma? An equally disturbed friend and I had a hunch that it came from those beautiful white, blooming trees. After all, that was the only thing that had changed recently on the Plaza.

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Amidst the several Cornellians enjoying a fine Saturday afternoon and evening out on the Arts Quad were a number of solemn black-cloaked individuals standing at the edges of the quad. Every few minutes, they stepped toward the center, while the ones standing at the six o’clock and twelve o’clock positions raised their lanterns. Another individual, possibly some kind of group leader, contrasted the still and silent dark circle by hobbling around in a bright blue hooded cloak with a crude walking stick, coughing every so often. Another small circle of young men in suits stood in the exact center of the arts quad, looking downwards.

Alpha Sigma Phi brother participating in the Black Lantern Processional

This strange sight was the Black Lantern Processional, a hundred-year-old tradition of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

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Chances are that the prospective students and their parents perusing our campus during Cornell Days, which began last week and runs until next Monday, are well informed about the recent spate of suicides on campus. After all, last month’s front-page New York Times article and CNN’s much-played report titled “College Suicide Crisis?” made the news hard to miss.

Now, those in charge of hosting these prospective students (known at Cornell as “pre-frosh”) and their families are being given advice on how to talk about the very sensitive subject of year’s suicides and the prominent fencing that has been put on campus bridges as a response.

When asked about the fences, tour guides are told to emphasize that the fences are temporary and bring up the wonderful mental health resources provided by Gannett and the student-run counseling program, EARS. We also hear that tour guides got detailed information about each suicide before anything was communicated with the general Cornell community.

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Are they greenhouses?  Part of a solar energy experiment?  The latest product in sustainable design?  Nope, rumor has it that the three plastic structures that appeared on the Arts Quad this morning are part of an installation art project by a professor of architecture in the School of Art, Architecture, and Planning.  Apparently she required her second-year architecture class to come help set it up– a “fun” Sunday afternoon break from studio.

In response to the three suicides in Cornell’s gorges this semester, Cornell has erected giant, wire-topped metal fences on all of the bridges.  While the fences cannot protect against determined, pre-meditated suicides, they are supposed to discourage “impulse suicides”—that is, a spontaneous decision to throw oneself off of our readily available bridges.

The problem is, we’ll never really know whether they actually prevent someone from taking the fatal plunge.  In the meantime—the fences are a “temporary” solution designed to last about 18 months—they’re just ugly.  As one of my classmates put it the other day, “I feel like I’m in a concentration camp.”  If anything, they serve as a constant reminder of the recent tragedies.  And the flowers that people have been stringing through the chainlink (above) do little to lighten the mood.

On Tuesday, Cornell made the front page of the New York Times.  With three very public student suicides in the gorges in the last month, two on consecutive days last week, we’ve hit six suspected suicides since August.  With a national average that should put us at fewer than two annually, we’ve officially entered what’s called a “suicide cluster”—that is, a so-called “contagious” string of suicides.

And Cornell’s response?  In the short run, they have posted guards on every bridge, effective through the end of this week.  You can find them out all night, looking bored and a little chilly in reflective vests.  On Saturday, Susan Murphy, Vice President for Student and Academic Affairs, called an emergency meeting of student leaders that included the heads of the Student Assembly, Interfraternity Council, and Inter-Cooperative Council, among others.  She also issued a video address, emailed to every student amongst a flurry of press releases and mental health infographics.  You can’t walk across the bridges anymore without passing inspirational chalk and strewn flowers.  The other day, a random boy offered me a Hershey’s Kiss at the end of the Thurston Avenue Bridge.

But the culmination of Cornell’s response to the suicides occurred this afternoon with a much-publicized event on the Arts Quad entitled “Lift Your Spirits: A Cornell Community Gathering.”

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